3 Things that Grind My Gears in Football

I’m back! The self-confessed serial moaner is here to share with you all the annoying aspects of the beautiful game that frankly make me want to throw up. Last time I shared my thoughts on international football, I was just breaking you in gently, today I’m in full on angry mode! Here are some of the things in the beautiful game that push my buttons.

1. Half and Half Scarves

So you follow a team, in fact, you don’t just follow them, they are your religion! Your mood through the week will be affected by Saturday’s result. A win and it’s all rainbows and sunshine. A loss and you have a constant raincloud following you around and it feels like a small part of you is grieving.

So this is why I cannot get my head around half and half scarves. What person in their right mind would destroy a perfectly good scarf by placing another club’s emblem on it? I can’t imagine many Kopites proudly wearing a Liverpool/Manchester mash up, can you?

2. So-Called Experts with Verbal Diarrhoea

Do you ever see someone at work and think “I could do that!”? I certainly do when I watch TV and the football is on and the commentator is endlessly spouting nonsense. Now I am willing to accept that there is a degree of skill involved. I’m even prepared to accept that a lot of research goes into their jobs. But a lot of time I think the only qualifications needed are an A level in clichés and lack of a filter between the brain and the mouth. Not convinced? Let’s have a few examples.
“He’s got a lot of self-belief in himself” – GRAHAM BEECROFT (as opposed to???)
“And with 4 minutes gone, the score is already 0-0.” – IAN DARK (wonder what it was after 3 minutes?)
“Strangely, in slow motion replay, the ball seemed to hang in the air for even longer.” – DAVID ACFIELD (how strange David!)
“What will you do when you leave football, Jack — will you stay in football?” – STUART HALL (mess with his head Jack and say “neither”).
“If you closed your eyes, you couldn’t tell the difference between the two sides” – PHIL BROWN

3. Lack of 3pm Matches on the Box

This is one of the most frustrating things in football! If I lived in Spain, Italy, India, Jamaica, probably even Mars, I could watch football at 3pm, with a beer, on my comfy armchair. But no! The powers that be have decided that showing a game (that I would have no interest in going to anyway) at 3pm on Saturday would ‘threaten the sanctity’ of the traditional Saturday 3pm kick-off. What utter tosh!
However, if you are like me and this grinds your gears, then hope may be on the horizon! The European Court of Justice recently conducted a study and found that the 3pm black-out has ‘little or no impact’ on attendances and in-fact, the 3pm rule may restrict the European Commission’s desire for cross-border access to audio-visual content.
This sounds great, now as long as we don’t do anything to upset our relationship with Europe, we should all be fine!